


pierce my heart and make it last

by annabetncnase



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Pre HOO, percy being a dork, post pjo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 19:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18900841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabetncnase/pseuds/annabetncnase
Summary: Percy and his poor impulse control had accomplished their fair share of extreme and cheesy displays of affection, but maybe this one would be it. This one would probably weird her out. Hey, Annabeth, we’ve been dating for less than two months, but how about we poke permanent holes in our bodies to represent our very recent relationship?“Percy, that’s a stupid idea. Let’s do it.”or,Percy and Annabeth get their ears pierced.





	pierce my heart and make it last

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys. surprise surprise, I wrote more percabeth!!!  
> somehow I managed to write almost 2k words about them getting their ears pierced, so I hope it doesn't suck!  
> enjoy!

It was a Saturday morning, and Percy and Annabeth were hanging out at his apartment when he asked the question.

“What if I got my ears pierced?”

Percy didn’t mean it as a serious question. He’d noticed Alex from the Hephaestus cabin had done it and he thought it looked pretty cool, but he wasn’t actually considering doing it.

Annabeth eyed him for a couple of seconds, eyebrows raised.

“I think you should.”

He wasn’t actually considering doing it until she said that.

“Wait. Seriously?”

“Yeah. I mean, it would match your whole skater guy… aesthetic.”

“Um, thanks?”

Annabeth blushed, much to Percy’s liking.

“Shut up. I mean it would look cute on you.”

And that’s all it took to get Percy to decide to get his ears pierced. And as if that wasn’t impulsive enough, he decided to go one step further.

“You should do it too. We could both get them pierced, it could be, like, a couple thing.”

Wow. _Wow._

 _Nice job, Jackson,_ he told himself. See, the thing was: being with Annabeth made him kind of irrational. He didn’t want to be too intense and scare her away with all his _stupid feelings_ but sometimes something extremely cheesy and dumb like that would jump out before he could stop it. Like he didn’t overdo it enough by taking her to _Paris_ on their _one month anniversary_ , but _gods_ , he thought she’d like it so much it didn’t even occur to him that he might have been getting ahead of himself until the next day. She seemed to love the trip, though, so at least he got away with _that_ extreme display of affection.

But maybe this one would be it. This one would must have weirded her out. _Hey, Annabeth, we’ve been dating for less than two months, but how about we poke permanent holes into our bodies to represent our very recent relationship?_

“Percy, that’s a very stupid idea-”, Annabeth started.

He froze.

“-let’s do it.”

* * *

An hour later, the two demigods found themselves shopping for earrings.

“I cannot believe you’re doing this without telling your mom.”

“Uh, excuse me, but I don’t remember you telling your dad either.”

“Right. Even if I showed up at my house with my hair dyed black he wouldn’t notice, so I don’t think he’ll mind if I get my ears pierced.”

Annabeth ended up picking out a pair of earrings shaped like books, and Percy chose plain black ones. He offered to pay for her, which earned him a smack because _you don’t have to and it was my idea anyway, Seaweed Brain_.

“Okay, let’s do this. Shall we get in line?” Percy motioned towards the group of about five people, all of them teenagers, waiting to get their ears pierced.

“Are you kidding me?” Annabeth asked. “You want to get our ears pierced at a Claire’s?”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say in front of a bunch of people who are about to get their ears pierced at a Claire’s,” he stage whispered. “Also, why wouldn’t we?”

“Because it’s _extremely_ unsanitary, and these people aren’t even trained. You might as well do it yourself.”

Percy raised an eyebrow and smiled.

“You chicken?”

“No, you loser, I just don’t want my ears to fall off.”

“You could always have some ambrosia and heal your impeding infection before your ears do fall off.”

“Yeah, or we could save the ambrosia for an actual injury that we couldn’t prevent and have our ears pierced properly.”

“Fine, where do we go then?”

“Well, there’s a tattoo parlor across the street.”

“A tattoo parlor? I think I’ll just do it myself, thanks.”

“What’s wrong with a tattoo parlor?”

“If my mom’s already gonna freak out because I got my ears pierced without her knowing, imagine what she’s gonna think when she finds out I went to a tattoo parlor! Where people get tattoos, and, I don’t know, pierce their nipples? She’s going to have a heart attack, Annabeth.”

“You chicken?” She smiled, and Percy knew he had lost this discussion. “Look, you’re not going to get a tattoo or a nipple piercing, so you don’t have to worry about the scary tattoo parlor. Besides, even if you are doing something dumb and impulsive without her permission, I’m sure she’ll be glad you did it safely.”

And so they crossed the street to _Queen of Hearts Ink_. Annabeth informed the receptionist, a woman with a green mohawk, that they’d like to get their ears pierced, and she told them to wait. They did for a couple of minutes, until a very tall man stopped in front of them.

“Alright, you two are getting your ears pierced, right? Who wants to go first?”

Percy turned to his girlfriend.

“Ladies first.”

She glared at him, but stood up and followed the guy to a chair in the corner of the parlor. As she sat down, the woman at the front desk got up.

“Well, we don’t have any appointments right now, so I think I can do your ears, you don’t have to wait for Mark to finish. Come here, kid.”

She led Percy to a chair on the opposite side of the room from Annabeth, and he could see her listening to the tall guy - Mark - tell her something. She would kick his ass if he told her this, but she looked a little terrified. Percy was probably just as terrified, though, so he decided to leave it at that.

“I’m Lacey,” the mohawk lady introduced herself. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Percy.”

“Alright. Don’t be scared, Percy. You look like a tough guy, you’ll be fine. I assume you have earrings picked out?”

“Oh, um, right. Here.” He handed her the tiny plastic box that contained his earrings.

He saw her pick up the piercing gun, which looked like, well, _a gun._ Percy had been punched, stabbed, cut with swords, he had even exploded once, but for some reason he was more than a little scared of this little instrument that would be used to poke a little hole in his earlobe. He decided to just look at Annabeth instead.

Apparently, she was halfway done. Mark was walking over to her left side, because her right ear already had a tiny book hanging from it. As he inserted the other earring, the piercing gun made a low _clack!_ and Annabeth made a face, squeezing her eyes shut for a second. She saw Percy grinning at her and stuck out her tongue.

Behind Percy, Lacey said:

“Alright, Percy, let’s get started. Should we do right ear first?” He nodded. “Okay, here we go.”

The cold metal of the tip of the piercing gun pressed against Percy’s earlobe, and a second later he heard the _clack!_ , louder this time, and felt a sting of pain spread on his ear. He was a big boy, though, so he didn’t even say anything.

“‘That your girlfriend?” Lacey asked as she walked over to Percy’s left side.

He smiled.

“Yeah.”

“She’s very pretty.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Was this her idea? Matching earrings?”

“Actually, it was mine. It was kind of an impulsive suggestion, but I guess she went along with it. She’s really cool.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet. We get a lot of couples getting their ears pierced together, but it’s usually the girl’s idea. Okay, Percy, left ear now.”

 _Clack!_ , and he was done.

With two sore ears, he walked over to Annabeth, who waited for him at a chair near Lacey’s desk. They said thanks, paid and started their way to Percy’s apartment hand in hand. After a couple dozen feet, Annabeth stopped walking and started laughing.

“What? What is it?” Percy asked, half laughing along, half worried.

“I can’t believe we just did that!”

“Oh. Do you- do you regret it? Because I think if you take it off right now the hole will close up and-”

“What? Percy, I don’t regret anything. I love the earrings, this was a great idea. Your mom will probably still be mad, but it was a great idea.”

Percy let out a nervous laugh. Annabeth sounded honest, like she really did like the idea of getting their ears pierced. Maybe she wasn’t going to be scared off that easy after all, which was good, because he knew he was probably not done with saying and doing thing impulsively.

“It’s just that, you know, two months ago I was worried about whether or not you were going to die” she continued, “and now we’re out here, getting our ears pierced like normal teenagers. It’s kinda funny, right?”

It really was. The soreness in Percy’s ears was funny compared to holding up the sky or seeing Annabeth take a knife for him, but now, those things were gone, and all they had were painful earlobes. And each other.

“Right”, Percy answered, grabbing her face leaning in to kiss her.

“Ow!” She jumped back. “You touched my ear, you idiot! It’s still sore!”

“Sorry, sorry” he muttered, and proceeded to kiss her anyway. He felt her smile against his lips, though, so he assumed she wasn’t mad.

* * *

“Perseus Jackson, you got your ears pierced without telling me!?”

Even though Sally was several inches shorter than Percy, she towered over him in anger.

“I’m sorry, mom. We did it at a tattoo parlor, though, so everything was sanitized?” he tried

“I don’t want to hear it. You are grounded, young man. No X-Box for a week.”

Percy nodded, resigned. It could have been worse. Sally turned to Annabeth.

“And you, Annabeth. Gods, I would expect something like this from Percy, but you?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Jackson” she cooed, and Percy had to fight the urge to smile. Ever since his mom had met Annabeth, she had started mothering her as if her son’s friend was her own child, and it had been getting worse as time passed. He was glad the person he cared about the most in the entire world also loved the other person he cared about the most in the entire world.

Like two teenagers who had just been grounded - which they were -, Percy and Annabeth walked silently to his room. When Percy shut the door, they stared at each other in silence for a few seconds and started laughing, and they laughed, laughed, and laughed until their stomachs hurt.

“You’re right, I can’t believe we did this” Percy finally said.

“It’s kinda stupid, right? But, I don’t know. It’s… permanent. I like it.”

And Percy thought he was starting to understand why she was so fast to get on board with this. Everything in her life had always been so ephemeral, so she was probably happy to have something in her life that would last for sure. And yeah, maybe it was just stupid earrings, but it meant something to her. To them. For once, he was happy about his spontaneous displays of affection.

“Yeah. I like it too” he pulled Annabeth to him and kissed her cheek. ”But I’m grounded now. No X-Box for a week.”

“Oh, no!” She exclaimed dramatically. “What _on Earth_ will you do with your time now?”

He smiled at her.

“I have some ideas.”

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank @bipercabeth on tumblr for telling me a little bit about how americans get their ears pierced. I also based some of it on my own experience from many years ago, so if it sounds inaccurate, blame it on cultural differences lol.  
> also I know that percy has talked abt annabeth having owl earrings that her dad gave to her, but I don't remember in which book that was, so for the sake of this fic let's just pretend she hadn't had them pierced yet lol.  
> also thanks to nina/@kristinstoked on tumblr for helping me with the title!  
> I am @annabetncnase on tumblr if anyone wants to chat :)


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